Search is on for lessons in 5th District

BATON ROUGE – Since newcomer Vance McAllister scored a crushing, 20-point win to become Louisiana’s newest congressman, political insiders have pointed to what those results must mean in the larger context of the next rounds of state and federal elections.

Surprise! The lessons cited by party leaders, organizations and pundits tend to support their angle of interest.

But many are overreaching in their analysis of the results in the 5th District, a surprising election in which the front-runner, Republican state Sen. Neil Riser, was defeated in a landslide victory by a GOP newcomer who had no name recognition only three months ago.

Critics of Gov. Bobby Jindal see McAllister’s win for the vacant congressional seat as a referendum against the governor, whose approval ratings remain steadily below 50 percent. Riser was Jindal’s ally, and Jindal’s chief political adviser Timmy Teepell worked on Riser’s campaign.

Democratic Party leaders and supporters of Medicaid expansion see McAllister’s victory as a sign of support for the expansion allowed under the federal health care overhaul, since McAllister supported it while Riser opposed it and ran campaign ads attacking McAllister’s position.

Republican Party leaders suggest the win is a repudiation of Democratic policies and beliefs, since no Democratic candidate even made the runoff.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senate race candidate Rob Maness pointed to the 5th District results as demonstrating that Louisiana’s voters want new faces and are tired of long-time politicians — in other words, that voters want someone like him.

Apparently, everyone can find a good story from McAllister’s win.

Certainly, Jindal’s poor approval ratings didn’t help Riser’s candidacy and Republicans have an obvious point about the Democratic candidates’ poor showing in the race.

But people seeking trends from a low-turnout, off-year special election might want to proceed with caution in trying to apply them to Louisiana’s 2014 Senate race and 2015 statewide elections. Those races will involve higher turnouts, meddling from outside organizations and, in most cases, incumbent politicians.

McAllister’s come-from-nowhere victory has been the talk of state political circles since the election, and it has drawn interest nationally as well. His “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” tale — he had never been to Washington before arriving as a congressman — and his backing from the bearded men of the popular “Duck Dynasty” TV reality show are attention-grabbing.

With multiple successful businesses, McAllister also had a deep pool of personal wealth that he was willing to pour into the race, spending at least $800,000 of his own money for the short campaign cycle. That ability to self-finance can’t be ignored, and it isn’t available to all political unknowns seeking to run for office.

Riser also appeared to be immediately hampered by accusations the 5th District election was rigged to help him.

The rural 5th District had been without a congressman since September, when Republican Rodney Alexander left his seat midterm to take a job in the Jindal administration. When Alexander unveiled his plans to step down, Riser quickly announced his campaign. Alexander threw his backing to Riser, and Riser hired Jindal’s top political adviser and chief fundraiser.

The whole thing looked too cozy, drawing vocal criticism from other Republicans, in addition to Democrats. Riser, Alexander and Jindal denied the accusations, but Riser lost GOP support and gained new opponents because of the claims. That helped McAllister.

Even Riser’s colleagues and friends privately suggest Riser never put those accusations to bed. They also suggest he relied too heavily on bad campaign advice.

In his assessment, McAllister says the top take-away from his victory for candidates, elected officials and pundits should be that voters dislike negative campaigning. In the two-man runoff, Riser’s strategy largely involved attacking McAllister, and that was the focus of his TV advertising.

“This is a good lesson. I think Neil Riser is a great guy, but I think his consultants and his campaign, they went too far. I’ve never seen a worse campaign in my life. That’s not what America needs. That’s not what the 5th District needs. They should be ashamed of themselves,” McAllister said two days after his election win.

That could be a lesson, but who thinks campaigns will avoid attack ads in the next election cycle?